[EN] The work presented here focuses on the study of the acoustic behavior of rigid structure granular materials derived from natural products. Lightening materials are employed in construction. Severals products are ...[+]

[EN] The work presented here focuses on the study of the acoustic behavior of rigid structure granular materials derived from natural products. Lightening materials are employed in construction. Severals products are extracted directly from quarry, being processed in industrial treatment plants to obtain the required properties. These materials do not contribute to environmental pollution from the point of view of the product nature. Products as arlite and vermiculite are available in the market with different particle sizes. These materials have very interesting properties: they exhibit high porosity, withstand high temperatures, have advantages from an economic point of view and their density is low.
These lightweight materials are used in applications as loose material for various purposes: gardening, filling landfills or thermal insulation, among other examples. However, porous granular products obtained from expanded clay aggregates or vermiculite in cement mortar open a wide field of possibilities: acoustic screens to reduce acoustic impact in public or residential areas, absorbent material seen or hidden for walls and ceilings, etc. The potential of these granular materials in construction is interesting as they allow formation of prefabricated panels with multiple aesthetic geometries obtained under formwork molds. In this thesis the use of such composites is proposed in order to increase the sound attenuation in industrial noise control devices, such as silencers used in energy production plants, combustion engines, ventilation systems and air conditioning.
To do this, the evaluation of properties as well as acoustic and non-acoustic parameters is carried out of various particle sizes obtained with arlite and vermiculite and the acoustic absorption coefficient is also obtained. The high temperature resistance of the granular material enables their use in severals industrial applications, including those discussed above in the field of industrial noise control devices. The feasibility of the solutions examined and proposed in this PhD thesis as sound-absorbing material to use inside silencers is an aspect to consider and its application in this sector is studied.
It is interesting to obtain a granular product with sufficient consistency. As it is shown in the work , the amount of cement used in the preparation of the mortar sets the grain size of the final product and is decisive for a lightweight strength material in practical applications. The influence of the dosing of raw materials in the preparation of the mixture is analyzed. This effect is very important in vermiculite.
After an exhaustive process, five granular compounds (2 from arlite and 3 from vermiculite) with different grain size are analized and acoustically studied. Sound absorption coefficient and flow resistivity are experimentally measured. Other non-acoustic parameters such as porosity, tortuosity and pore size distribution were experimentally determined. The implementation of these parameters in a theoretical model to predict acoustic performance has allowed the quantification of the sound absorption quickly and accurately without using the impedance tube. Of the various approaches available in the literature, Horoshenkov and Swift model for acoustical prediction in granular materials is selected due to its accuracy and the reduced number of parameters involved, as well as the possibility of obtaining these parameters with the available experimental equipment of the research team within which this PhD thesis is framed. The potencial and viability of these developed granular products for noise control in industrial applications (mufflers used in power production plants, engines, ventilation systems, etc.) is analyzed in the test bench available at the Department.[-]